A small number of University of Michigan students and administrators have been meeting for months to examine the feasibility of offering undocumented students from Michigan in-state tuition.

Undocumented students pay international rates to attend U-M and they aren't eligible for federal financial aid.

For about the past year and a half, the Coalition for Tuition Equality has advocated to change the policy. The student group has run an aggressive campaign; among other things, they've held rallies on the Diag at the center of the Ann Arbor campus, staged sit-ins at meetings of the university's board of regents.

Since July, four students and three administrators have held on-and-off meetings to develop a report about undocumented students at U-M. The group has met with various departments on campus and, last fall, it traveled to California to learn how the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA have implemented policies to give undocumented residents in-state tuition.

Chanting "Education, not deportation," a few dozen students braved the rain and cold on Monday to rally in front of the Fleming Administration Building, which houses the offices of U-M President Mary Sue Coleman and other administrators, and hear an update on the coalition's progress.

Sanjay Jolly, who graduated from U-M in December and is one of the coalition's members of the working group with the university, spoke at the rally, but in an interview after the event, he said administrators support the idea of tuition equality, but they need to figure out how to make it feasible.

"Everyone really wanted to push this forward subject to legal, political and financial constraints," Jolly said. "So there's no doubt that there's broad support at every level of the administration."

He declined to comment on the contents of the report because it has yet to been released. Still, he said the university can set a precedent in the state to offering in-state tuition to undocumented resident students. Most public universities in Michigan don't give undocumented students in-state tuition.

"As the University of Michigan goes, we widely expect, and University administrators widely expect that the rest of the state will follow," he said.

U-M spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the report is in its final review stages. He said he expects it to be released "soon," but he declined to provide an exact date.

It was announced yesterday that University of Michigan provost Phil Hanlon will become the next president of Dartmouth College starting July 1, 2013.

Hanlon, 57, is a graduate of Dartmouth and will become the college's 18th president.

In a New York Times piece, Hanlon indicated that university funding, in its current form, is reaching a breaking point:

Dr. Hanlon, who will be the 10th Dartmouth graduate to become its president, said he expected to focus closely on the college’s cost structure and finances. “The historic funding model for higher ed is close to unsustainable,” he said. “We can’t continue superinflationary tuition increases.”

Central Michigan University's decision to keep its tuition rate increase for this school year lower than that of other state schools is paying off to the tune of almost $1.8 million in extra state aid from a fund set up to reward universities for smaller hikes.

CMU raised its tuition rate by 2%, the lowest in the state. It will get 19.6% of the bonus money.

The top five schools for keeping tuition hikes in check (and their associated bonus payments) are:

Central Michigan University - $1.8 million

Ferris State University - $1.3 million

UM in Ann Arbor - $1.1 million

Lake Superior State - $1.0 million

Oakland - $930,000

The Detroit Free Press has a breakdown of tuition increases and bonus payments for all 15 public universities.